Thursday, January 02, 2014

Comments on and one correction to James Ellroy's American Tabloid

1) The item of jewelry one pins to one's clothing, sometimes as a fastener, is a brooch, no matter how many times American Tabloid spells it broach.

2) I don't like pat critical phrases, but American Tabloid really is compulsively readable. I've tried to get to bed early the past few nights, slipping under the covers by 2 a.m., intending to read a few pages, then get up early and work the next day, but I was still reading at 4 and 5 a.m. Here are a few examples of what makes the novel so much fun:

12 Comments:

Peter, I was just reading what seems to be an otherwise carefully researched book and was surprised to see the author refer to the Munro Doctrine. I actually had to check it just now to be sure I hadn't just imagined that it was James Monroe who had introduced the idea to the nation. The author can be excused because he lives in Sydney, but I don't really think that applies to the editor.

The editor cannot be excused, but the blame ultimately rests with the publisher, who is responsible for making sure the product is as good as possible, even if that means paying top-flight copy editors and proofreaders.

Kelly, I have to compartmentalize my thinking on this (compartmentalizing figures prominently in the novel, by the way. Ellroy is a kind of Alan Glynn when it comes to highlighting the ethical shortcuts that make their way into popular speech. Though the two authors' tones are very different, a reader who likes one might well like both). The repeated brooch/broach mistake is inexcusable, but the novel is so good that I want to praise one even as I call derisive attention to the other.

I see this "brooch/broach" kind of thing more all the time. What's truly disturbing is when I see it in books written by people I know would have done it right. Somewhere between them sending it in and the final print being set, it must have gotten changed. We send documents electronically now; there's no need to hand set the type. Where do these errors creep in?

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This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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